Commerce involves the activity of selling goods by a seller to a customer. The seller may be a business owner or a consumer and the goods may be a new or a used item. There exist numerous ways to sell goods in the market.
Conventionally, the activities occur in a physical store, where the customers make payments for the goods when checking out at the store. Since the store owner or employees have to be physically present to manage the store, the overhead expenses, such as the labour and rental costs, of the business are relatively high.
With the advent of technology, electronic commerce (e-commerce) is becoming increasingly popular among the consumers and is becoming a main source of income to many businesses. Some e-commerce companies are Carousell®, eBay® and Amazon.com®. However, e-commerce does not allow the goods to be viewed in person by the customers and the delivery of the goods takes time.
In addition, the seller may also arrange to meet the customer to complete the transaction after being contacted by a customer online. However, this mode of transaction requires both parties to commute and thus causing loss in time and in travelling cost. The customer may also refuse to buy the good upon meeting up, thus causing much distress to the seller.
A need therefore exists to provide a solution for facilitating a sale of an item that addresses at least one of the problems above or to provide a useful alternative.